


Ella Dale and Nimsea (EDAN)

by Icaralo



Series: The Nimsea Chronicles [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: I heard it was sunny, Original Character(s), Original World, Original work - Freeform, also hey this is my first trip down to hell, but all it's done is rain, in a good way, magic? exists here?, maybe romantic relationships?, mostly platonic because that's what we all deserve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28557363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icaralo/pseuds/Icaralo
Summary: Ella wants to go home. Rhys wants his kingdom. They both have loss staining their lips. Will they manage to stay afloat in the hurricane that is grief, loss, and war?
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Platonic mostly - Relationship, romantic perhaps?
Series: The Nimsea Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092350





	1. One: Ella

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first work here, and technically the first work I've stuck with this long (100+ pages). I'd really love to hear any feedback you have, writing or otherwise.
> 
> Have a lovely day and thank you for reading!

The sky glowed an orange-pink, the sun just starting to rise.  
  
Ella’s ragged old shoes pounded on pavement, the world a blur of trees and suburban homes. She leapt from road to curb to sidewalk, avoiding the cracks habitually. The bus sat just ahead, dark smoke pouring from exhaust pipes. The rickety old thing reminded her of an impatient old man with high waisted pants and crossed arms. She cracked a smile at the thought and began to slow. Mistake.

The bus rumbled to life, starting to pull away from the stop.

“Hey! HEY-STOP!” She shouted, arms waving and pace jump starting. 

Her satchel thumped against her thigh. The driver, who she couldn’t see, did not stop. So Ella Dale scooped her pack into her arms and started sprinting. She wove through suburban streets, the houses either squat with peeling paint or huge mansions. It was as if the neighborhood was caught in the middle of a scene change. 

After a right turn and a stop sign, she stood at the doors.

“Let. Me. In.” She said.

The bus driver, a man made up of mostly beard, frowned. He grumbled as Ella swiped her pass, as she shuffled through the crowded aisle, and as he started the bus up again. Ella collapsed into an empty seat, leaning her head on the seat in front. She couldn’t seem to stuff the air back into her lungs.  
  
Ella drank in a landscape she’d seen hundreds of times but couldn’t quite get enough of. Small patches of woods gave way to a crowded highway, and she dug out her phone along with a tangled set of earbuds that were dead on one side. Music poured out, volume as high as it could get, setting her firmly adrift in memory.  
Ella had woken to the fourth alarm of the morning in a cold sweat, hands gripping her sheets. The thought of scrolling through her phone for a few more hours and then going back to sleep was sorely tempting, but she had work to do. She’d had a job- months ago- before everything went to hell. She’d been fired for too many unexplained absences and hadn’t bothered to get another. She hadn’t had the energy.

This job was better than her last, though, and she was determined to start saving again. College would have to happen eventually, and her father couldn’t be counted on. He wouldn’t even if she asked- if she expected it. The thought didn’t even hurt anymore. Sixteen years of his indifference and interest in the wrong places had given her thick skin where he was concerned.

Ella sighed and closed her eyes, floating on a wave of soft vocals and piano as the road soaked into her through the seat. She had missed the feeling of being on the move. But too soon, the bus was slowing to a shuddering stop. Her stop. Ella stood and pulled up her hood. When people wouldn’t move, she used her unusually sharp elbows to her advantage. This earned her many annoyed glances.

Once outside, sunlight streamed into her eyes. Ella squinted affrontedly and muttered, “Disgusting.” She hadn’t so much as glimpsed daylight in four months, and to be honest, she hadn’t missed it one bit. As she wound through a back alley that led to the Metro entrance, Ella scowled.  
  
Thankfully, the Metro tunnel was sun and construction free. This early in the morning Ella had to fight the current with violent ferocity to even get close to the turnstiles. Her small stature gave others the impression she could be walked over. She corrected that assumption viciously.

Music became a buffer between her and the outside world, the elbows and sides pressing against her… She set her jaw and tried to keep breathing. I can do this I can do this. Just need to get to the stairs- She flew down the steps as if she were fleeing an apocalypse made up of tiny inconveniences. The platform allowed her to stop and catch her breath.

Ella found a wall to lean against and watched people hurry by, the same harassed look on every face. Young and old, man, woman, or in between, everyone had that same set to their jaw. Their sights set on getting out and somewhere, perhaps to someone, different. She set her jaw at the thought of going toward someone instead of away. She’d felt like that, once.

Ella’s stomach gurgled, the sound like gravel and sand butting heads. She couldn’t tell when she’d eaten last. With a glance at the wait time for her train, she pushed off the wall in search of spoils. She came back to her spot, mercifully unoccupied, with four granola bars and a bottle of water. Her best decision yet, really, since they disappeared faster than she bought them.

She turned her attention back to people-watching, noting a mother’s strained hold on a restless child, the man ogling a woman as if she couldn’t see him. And then the train rolled in, just a minute late. Ella waited for the flood to slow, ducking into a newer compartment with bright blue seats and a helpful map. She took a seat next to the door, bag occupying the seat next to her.

Right before the doors could close, a woman stumbled in, crutches swinging. The woman gave Ella a pleading look. Ella moved the bag and looked at her from the corner of her eye. Blonde, short, black turtle-neck and a boot on her foot. Big, round glasses. 

The woman smiled, almost brightening the world around her with the force of it. “Thank you so much! You’re a literal saint!”

Ella blinked, forgetting every word she knew and nodded, lips turning up at the corners in a poor imitation of a smile. The statement couldn’t have been farther off, but the sentiment counted. Three stops, and the woman with the angelic smile departed, leaving Ella to watch the world go by for another two.

As she took the stairs two at a time, trying to make up for lost time, she couldn’t help but think about the woman. Somehow, this total stranger had coerced the closest thing to emotion Ella had felt in four goddamn months. She turned the interaction over in her head, trying and failing to see what was so special, other than the woman’s smile. Her smile had been light and easy, but so much of her personality had shone through. Maybe magic does exist, just a little, in the smiles of strangers.

“Turn that frown upside down!” Said her manager, Tyfynay as soon as she stepped inside the store, just a minute late. Her manager’s grin was too wide, teeth too white and eyes vacant. Ella almost walked out. And then she remembered she needed money, so she hoisted up the fake smile flag, pinned on her nametag, and shed her hoodie. The store bustled and buzzed, full of noise and color and activity. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

Instead, hours slipped through her fingers. The repetition of restocking and reshelving didn’t take much, and she enjoyed the small-talk she kept up with her coworkers. A girl named Jenna, with red hair and a smile like she was sharing a secret, took it upon herself to make sure Ella got through her first day alright. It wasn’t too tedious, especially because Jenna didn’t mind Ella’s shell and pointed aversion of personal topics. It was nice, to forget who she was for a while. Of course, when the store was closing for good, Jenna made her promise to go home. Ella kept her promises and couldn’t have done more work anyway, so she left.

Almost asleep on her feet, Ella stepped into blessed darkness, ready for the journey home. As she walked, she kept her hands white-knuckled on a foldable knife. Karina, she called it. “Always better to be safe than dead in a ditch,” a more than friend had once said.

  
The air pressed up against her, uncomfortably warm against her skin. Nervousness wrapped its slimy hands around her heart, squeezing just out of synch with her heartbeat. Her steps quickened, senses sharpening.

  
 _This is ridiculous,_ she thought. There were no footsteps behind her, no one giving chase. She turned around, determined to show herself the markedly empty street. Instead, a girl stood in the shadows, hair obscuring her face. Not that Ella needed to see it. She knew the lines by heart- had woken up beside them too many times to count. Her breath came in shuddering gasps, panic boosting the shadows in her vision.

  
“Hey there El,” the girl said, smile widening impossibly.

  
Ella didn’t think, she ran.

  
She raced through almost empty streets, cutting through alleys and parking lots that were more dangerous than the girl chasing her. Fear tugged her onwards, not at all blindly, but stumbling with tears in her eyes. _I can’t stop. She can’t catch me._ Desperation laced every step, the girl’s steps pounding after her own.

Sometimes, desperation gets you where you need to go.

  
Ella almost sobbed in relief when she saw her bus, parked faithfully at its stop. Now it struck her more as a goddess offering shelter, arms spread wide and smile soft. She threw herself into the glorious fluorescent light, chest heaving and eyes still too wide. The driver gave Ella a concerned glance, lashes long and hair coiled atop her head in a mountain of natural braids.

  
“Someone chasing you, honey?”

  
“I don’t- I’m not-” She paused for breath. “I don’t know.”

  
“Well I’m glad you’re in here, then.”

  
Ella nodded and scrambled to the back. Every other seat was empty, so she slid into a random window seat and clenched her shaking hands into fists. What just happened? It couldn’t have been real, wasn’t possible. The girl behind her was dead. Ella had been to her funeral. I need a drink, she thought, lips pressing into a thin line. Instead of a drink, she played some soft music and lost herself in traffic lights and the glints of stop signs. All the while, thanking all her lucky stars and all their unlucky cousins for the smiles of strangers.

* * *

Ella got off the bus, watching it putter away into the cold, dark night with some apprehension. She didn’t wait long before sticking her hands in her pockets and walking off. She was in no mood to brave darkness and its demons again, so she stayed in the bright orange of street-lights, scanning the edges of her vision for movement. As she walked, she fiddled with a pendant that sat in the hollow of her throat; a pair of bronze lungs triple knotted to a black cord.

  
Crickets sang their songs, wind stirring at her back. The weather was just starting to turn, leaves already coating the ground as if trying to erase it from memory. Michael Dale had once told her, when he was on the alright edge of drunk, that the neighborhood had changed since her mother left.

  
“After my Llouella left, mansions started popping up. I always say, one bad fruit and the whole bowl goes.” And of course, she hadn’t (still didn’t) know or care what he meant. She’d simply shrugged and slipped into her room, getting out of his sight before the bad edge of his drunkenness started. Though another phrase, from another of his drunken nights, came to mind as she laid in bed that night. “Once upon a time there were less rich people and more houses like ours.”

  
Translation: less people who cared about the leaky roof and peeling paint and nest of copperheads under the deck. More drunk less-than-a-mile-from-alcohol-poisoning nobodies who rambled on and on about the past while sleeping through the present. Ella, for one, was glad to have less people like her father in the neighborhood.

  
Michael Dale had married her mother when she’d gotten pregnant. Michael liked to go on and on about how she tricked him, leaving him with a burden of a child. Ella had accepted his statement as fact as soon as she was old enough to understand. She was a burden, and he didn’t want her. It sounded so simple. What wasn’t simple, was the chair wedged under her door from when she was nine until now, or the knife under her pillow. Her father could be simple, but his actions were not.

  
Ella readjusted her knife and cut across a knee-length lawn intertwined with weeds, giving the squat clapboard house a serious side eye. She hopped a rusted chain link mostly out of habit, even though the gate had fallen down years ago. The lights in the living room were off. That put an imitation of a smile on her face. Her father had either passed out already, or was out at a bar.

  
She walked up to an old plastic stool that might once have been blue, stepping up and prying open the window. In flew her satchel, landing with a satisfactory thump. Ella slipped in after her bag, motion and practice fluid. She didn’t bother with the light, kicking her satchel into the chaos that was her bedroom floor. She was almost entirely sure that most of her closet was strewn about, and had been, for months.

  
In the bathroom, Ella peeled off her clothes and started the shower, setting the dial to just below burning. She took her time with the water, trying to wash off the day’s fear along with the grime. Once the water started to cool, she forced herself out, toweling off and resting her hands on the counter.  
A steamed-over mirror stood between her and her reflection. Ella started drawing swirls with her finger, glimpsing her pale skin and dark hair beneath them. Her fingers froze over an orange sticky note taped to the glass.

  
You’re always going to be the prettiest- Am ♡

  
Ella stared into the paper for what felt like hours. The girl on the street, and now this. It felt like her nightmares leaking into reality- hell, what’d happened that night was straight out of a dream. She wished she could rip the note up and throw it away, but it wasn’t that simple. Throwing the note away would mean getting rid of a part of her. Ella wasn’t ready to let go yet.

  
_Will you ever let me go?_

  
She pulled on jeans and a black hoodie-her only clean clothes- before flopping into bed. Her eyelids fell like slabs of concrete. She wouldn’t try to lift them. Maybe sleep would be an escape from her living nightmare. Likely not.

* * *

_Ella’s left hand was cold on the wheel, the other ensconced in both of Amanda’s. Ella smiled, wide and carefree as the music blared in her ears. Road Trip Songs- the ones she couldn’t help but sing along to. Her hair blew into her mouth. Amanda’s was like a flaming halo, terrifyingly angelic._

  
_Amanda Singer’s voice was a blessing and a curse, lifting Ella’s spirit, though making it more difficult to focus on the road. She didn’t mind, since Amanda only ever sang to her shampoo bottles and the girl sitting beside her, grinning like a madwoman and pushing 85 on an 70._

  
_The golden glowing sky was patched with creamy wisps, something worth painting. Ella’s fingers itched to slap some paint on a canvas and get lost for a few hours. But she wanted to stay there with Amanda- bask in her glorious voice fit for a movie._

  
_“I love you,” fell from Ella’s lips like a prayer, reverent and hushed. Amanda heard it anyway, and instead of what Ella expected, how the memory went, Amanda Singer turned. Her face was pale, grey eyes wide. Blood slid from her nose and ears, dripping onto the leather._

_“Wake up.”_


	2. Two: Rhys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Rhys. And his agenda.

Rhys’ cheek rested against cool stone, eyes glued to the sunrise. 

Fuchsia oranges and amber pinks graced the sky, draping themselves on puffy clouds while the sun began its daily ascent. He held his breath, still not able to believe just how beautiful the sunrises were in Majon. Every morning since arriving, he’d sat on his balcony and watched the world begin anew. 

Rhys hadn’t been there for more than four months, in that fortress of a castle. The structure was built into three mountains that flowed into valleys of golden-green grass. Its towers seemed to go up forever. As did its dungeons. 

In the past four months, he’d been plagued with worse nightmares and panic attacks than ever. It hurt to be in a place so similar to the past—though it had been six years. He’d thought he was ready.

_Screams pierced the air, smoke pouring into his lungs—_

Rhys took a deep breath.

_Flames climbed the walls faster than he could track them—_

He focused on the rolling hills below, trying to remember which valley was which.

_Her hand vanished from his in a flood of fleeing people—_

“Marzia Grey, find peace and rest,” he whispered, almost like a prayer.

_The crowd descended upon him, heeled shoes stabbing into his sides—_

“Alkim Grey, find the sleep you never seemed to get enough of.”

_He screamed, sobs wracking his chest—_

“Faye Grey, sleep for the life you were not granted.”

Rhys took another bone deep breath, tilting his head back to keep the tears in. A few escaped down his cheeks anyway, dripping down off his chin. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs. It’d been so long since he’d felt so full of emotions, yet so empty of himself. He relaxed against the wall. _I deserve to rest, just for a moment._

His dreams were dry as smoke, but simultaneously soaked in flames.

line

Rhys woke to the noon sun beating down on his face. The threads of his dreams crumbled to ash in his hands, mind still wrapped in gauze from sleep. He turned and waited for his legs to remember their purpose before hopping to the balcony floor and running a hand through his hair. He really shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Rhys’ day was packed, and now he had even less time to accomplish everything without issue.

Rhys stretched and groaned, slipping inside and pulling on his sword belt. The room was huge, though it hardly looked lived in. He spent most of his time in the library or in the one corner he’d claimed as his own. He hardly touched the four poster bed and the bookshelves worth more than his room back home. None of it felt like his. And it wasn’t.

While pulling together all of his various books and notes, the mirror caught his eye. He cringed at his hair, squashed to one side, and shook it out, returning the blond riot to full fluff. Rhys stepped closer, scrutinizing his hollow grey eyes and the purple circles beneath. When people still talked about his father, they used to tell Rhys he was a smaller copy. Now, all he ever saw in the mirror was a failure.

He looked away.

His hand slipped into his pocket on instinct, drawing out a piece of metal riddled with scratches and burn marks. A faint suggestion of a crest indented the middle. Years of tracing the crude marks had made them smooth beneath his fingers. He stared into the hunk of metal like it could tell his future. Really, it was the other way around.

A shiver went up his spine as the feelings started. A sturdy hand on his shoulder. The unbreakable scent of lavender and the phantom cries of a baby. Ghosts whispered in his ears, unimportant but unwilling to be forgotten. His father’s smile flashed every time he blinked.  
  
Rhys slipped the token back into his pocket, grabbing his bag and a delicate glass instrument called a Bashlin. Fairly common, the delicate contraption of colored glass allowed him to do complex mathematical equations without lifting more than a finger. He would protect the Bashlin with his life.

Rhys slipped through the hall, exiting the guest wing, skirting the noble wing, and many a corridor. Finally, he ended up at the door to Halwin Abavilliers’ tower. The guards let him through with only curt nods, allowing him to ascend the stairs. He passed every landing but the topmost, easing open the door and stepping into a circular room with a cluttered table and a multitude of bookshelves.

“Hello?” He called tentatively. 

No one answered, so he stepped over to the table. The dark wood was more cluttered than usual, leather bound books and maps with the same nonsensical text written all over. He suspected an extremely localized dialect with a small amount of code written in. Rhys leaned over one book, tiny and seemingly unimportant. He still couldn’t read the words, but the drawings looked like his own research: portals and old Varsian runes. He palmed the book.

“Admiring my work?” Abavilliers’ smooth voice asked. Rhys’ head snapped up, guilt scrawled across his face. Abavilliers laughed good-naturedly and took it for embarrassment. “Oh it’s all right Rhys, I’m sure the mystery of it is fascinating. Though I will confess to the dullness of the whole project. It’s just about some new shipping routes I’m urging the king to try.”

Rhys hummed and nodded, grip tightening on the notebook. Whatever was in _there_ wasn’t about shipping routes. It was about magic, the most powerful kind, which brought more questions to mind.

Rhys had known Halwin Abavilliers for four months, in which they’d been occasional study partners. Mostly, they worked alone until they found something of note, and then came to discuss. The man was a mystery. Abavilliers was a royal advisor to the king of Majon, had access to everywhere in the castle, and was a Black Mage. That was _all_ the information he’d managed to scrounge up in four months. Records of a childhood, hell, deeds before he cropped up at castle Majon were nonexistent. Meanwhile, Abavilliers seemed to know too much about Rhys. That difference sat like a stone in his stomach. 

Halwin Abavilliers was a willowy man with a pointed chin and nose. His black hair was perpetually slicked back, darker than tar. His eyes were the color of black associated with the moment before death. His clothes were also black, practical. He reminded Rhys of a _Jaalsat_ , demon.

line

They’d met on a freezing winter night when Rhys was wiping down tables in the local tavern. The owner paid well, so he worked evenings and nights as often as he could. When his back was turned, Abavilliers just sort of appeared. Magic has a way of marking its vessels with certain colors. He didn’t _look_ like a Grey Mage at all, lacking a spot of grey on him.

“Halwin Abavilliers,” he offered, smile sly.

“Rhys Boutler,” he returned.

“We both know that half of that wasn’t true.”

Rhys stiffened, fighting the instant urge to flee. Abavilliers unnerved him down to his core. _Run,_ whispered his instincts. _See how much of a danger he is,_ said logic. Logic won out, but he held his mop tighter than he had to.

“What of it?”

Abavilliers raised a brow. “I’m looking for Rhys _Grey_ , regarding news of his sister, Faye Grey.” Rhys dropped the mop. “If you are in fact him, I would recommend you speak now if you wish to hear.”

It was as if all the air had suddenly disappeared, leaving Rhys grasping for breath. _Faye Grey_. That name—the former something he only said in whispered prayers, and the latter something he’d buried as far as he could. What news could there possibly be? Faye was dead. As far as he knew, the dead couldn’t generate all that much news. That left the heart shaking possibility.

“Alright, fine, I’m him. Now what’s your news.” The lack of a question registered with Abavilliers. They both knew Rhys’d been caught, hook line and sinker.

line

“So,” said Abavilliers, striding around the table to stand next to Rhys. He held himself like his spine was made of steel. “Do you have everything ready for tonight?”

Rhys kept his eyes on the table, pretending to consider. “I have all of the last minute things to complete, but otherwise, yes.”

“Are _you_ ready?”

“Not a goddamn bit,” Rhys smiled sardonically.

Abavilliers sighed. “I’d suggest you get a handle on that before we truly begin. It’s not going to be easy, and you need to be sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Good.” 

With that, Abavilliers shooed Rhys out, urging him to get everything ready even as he shut the door in his face. _I really hope we don’t rip a hole in the fabric of reality,_ Rhys thought, descending the stairs with a purpose. When he’d said he didn’t know if he was ready, it’d been more than true. Rhys didn’t know if he wanted to do any of it. What he _wanted_ , was Abavilliers’ end of the bargain. Faye.

Abavilliers hadn’t so much as once produced Faye. There was no proof of life—all the signs pointed to his words ringing false. And yet. Rhys had followed him halfway across the country. _And_ he’d brought his friends. The last part he’d yet to regret.

Rhys stepped into a side hall, and let darkness wash over him. The hall faded, and he materialized deep within the library’s shelves. It was always a risk, teleporting. While it wasn’t an uncommon power, _he_ was supposed to be dead. And he had his father’s face, after all.

He glanced around and exhaled. No one was around to have seen anything. Back home he’d been able to use his power at almost any time, the small town not knowing anything about his past. Most wouldn’t care even if they did know. Rhys dealt kindly with those that returned the favor, so he was liked well enough.  
Majon allowed for much less privacy. He’d once found a maid pawing through his cloak. He’d stopped her before she’d gotten to his token, and from then on hidden his things more thoroughly.

Though now that he was truly alone, his fingers itched to pore over the notebook he’d snatched. But no. He couldn’t risk it. _Wouldn’t_. Even if someone caught him with the notebook and didn’t know what it was for, its owner would find out anyway. Abavilliers had a knack for collecting secrets.

Rhys navigated his way out of the cramped maze, coming out into a huge library the size of a cathedral. The walls themselves were shelves, all three floors. Balconies ringed each floor, stairs and ladders connecting them. Most librarians were Solitam, the kind of Mage with power unique to them alone. He scanned the floors, searching for a _particular_ Solitam.

“What’re you doing here, stranger?” He whipped around, hands tightening around his satchel strap.

“Oh,” he sighed, hands easing. “It’s just you.”

“ _Just me_?” She parroted, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead in mock offense. Her skin was golden, hair a sunny blonde that was cut in a messy pixie. Her eyes were two different colors, the left a glass blue and the other a sea green. 

“I’d hope you’d be just a little bit more overjoyed to see me. I _am_ your book dealer after all.” Rhys smiled. Mint winked conspiratorially. “C’mon, lemme show you what you asked for. It was _not_ an easy find, but I managed.” She led him through the stacks, stopping only to comment on this ancient script she’d helped decipher, or that book she enjoyed with that tea.

Eventually, she stopped in one of the many alcoves, and produced a book wrapped in a delicate blue velvet.

“Here it is!”

“Woah,” Rhys breathed, taking it from her hands carefully. “Did you read it?”

“I did not. Didn’t want to intrude or anything.”

“You, Min, are a fantastic book dealer. I may just have to start paying you.”

“Now don’t offer that,” she waggled her finger. “Because I _will_ overcharge you.”

He set the book aside, enveloped her in a hug, and spoke softly. “Really though, thank you for this. It’s helped me more than you’ll ever know.”

“Flatterer,” she whispered, head falling easily into the crook of his shoulder.

He pulled back and slid the book carefully into his bag. “Give Nifa and Odie my love?”

“Will do,” she said. “Though you ought to pay them a visit sometime. Well, when Nifa gets a minute of free time and Odie gets back.”

“They deployed him already?”

Mint’s mismatched eyes creased at the edges, age showing through her youthful exterior. “Yup. Apparently they considered him trained enough.”

Rhys let out a loud breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Damn that’s… when did it happen?”

“A few weeks ago, when you were holed up doing that secret job of yours. He—he told me to get you a message, but I haven’t seen you until now, so…” She held out a piece of paper that’d clearly been folded countless times. Rhys’ heart stuttered at the familiar script, print with a little spark. He took it and tucked the paper in his pocket.

“Thank you. This means a lot.” She ducked her head and nodded, swallowing thickly. “I don’t like the idea of him being out there. He’s not a fighter. And I’m also worried about Nifa. I haven’t seen her and anyone I ask always says she’s busy. Do you know what’s going on?”

“I thought you two had been in contact.”

“Oh,” she bit her lip. “We’re not.”

Rhys thought for a minute, ordering words. “I think they’re isolating her. Well, Abavilliers is.”

“Why?”

“To keep her uninformed. She’s dangerous and he knows it.”

She crossed her arms. “I hate this place.”

“Within the next week we’ll be gone,” he promised, relishing the return of light to her expression. “I finish my job tonight, and after that we can all wrap up our loose ends and be done with it all.”

“Well, for that to happen you need to actually do it. So get to it!” She shooed him out, waving him on when he looked back.

In all honesty, Rhys didn’t know if he could keep to his promise. He doubted Abavilliers would give up such a valuable prisoner, but he had to try. Had to get everyone home before the war came to them. It was only a matter of time. Time that was slipping through his fingers faster and faster.

line

With everything he needed for the ritual, Rhys found a quiet place and teleported into the room they’d be using. He was almost completely sure the hall was used for torture. The air stank of iron, and there were very _distinctive_ stains on the walls and ceilings. And there were the screams, of course. The walls weren’t soundproofed, the occasional cry leaking through. With the more than stellar environment, Rhys’ nerves were aflame. He kept jumping at the smallest of sounds.

He had to take a moment to tune everything else out, focusing only on replicating a drawing from his notebook. The actual design of the ritual was quite simple. Three concentric circles with ancient binding and splitting phrases written along the lines. Each circle required a power source. Rhys could account for two, but Abavilliers had insisted upon “acquiring” the first and most powerful. Rhys, having enough on his plate, had agreed at the time. Now, he wished he’d done it himself. At least he would know what exactly he was using.

While he worked, questions niggled at the back of his brain. 

_Is anyone going to get what they want here?_

_Will this work in the way we want it to?_

_Am I going to regret this?_

He never did have the chance to decide.

As soon as he’d touched up the last line, Abavilliers was melting out of the shadows. A nursery rhyme came to mind: _Rossen, Rossen, deep and dark, they’ll do more than steal your heart._ Rhys shivered and offered the man a grim smile.

“Alright. I’m ready.”

“Perfect,” he smiled, jerking his hand forward. Rhys barely had time to notice the length of chain wrapped twice around his palm before a woman stumbled out of the shadows, gasping wildly for breath. She fell to her knees, wispy white hair falling forward. Rhys froze.

“ _What is this_?”

“The most powerful source I could find,” he shrugged, jerking on the chain again. The woman groaned and tried to struggle to her feet. Rhys scrambled to help her, bringing her up by her elbows carefully. Abavilliers scoffed. “You don’t need to help her.”

“She’s an old woman,” Rhys hissed, giving Abavilliers a dark look. “I asked for a powerful source, not an old woman who can barely stand.”

Abavilliers chuckled, shaking his head. “I suppose you don’t see. This isn’t an old woman.” Rhys gave him a look. “This _thing_ —” he said the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Is a Witch, a Consumed, whatever name you may have for it. It’s not human, not anymore.”

Rhys looked from Abavilliers to the woman, who was staring straight ahead, eyes milky and colorless. He took in the glowing runes on her shackles which were used for magic inhibition, and they glowed in every color he could fathom.

“Do you have anything to say?” He asked gently.

“Not to you, princling,” she spat. Rhys recoiled.

“How do you—”

“I am what he says,” she croaked, eyebrows creased in scorn. “He is wise to dispose of me.”

“And you’d let him?”

A crooked grin spread across her face. “Aye, princling. No one can truly kill me now. I am magic. Our hearts beat in time. When you kill me—” Rhys flinched at the word when. “—I will simply return from whence I came.”

“Oh,” he murmured, still torn.

“Look,” Abavilliers sighed, clearly impatient. “It’s killed hundreds of people, and would do double the damage if it found a way. Killing it is a necessity. It’ll be easy.”  
“But she was human once. It can’t be right—”

“Grey,” Abavilliers snapped. “ _It_ would raze this entire castle and kill you, your sister, those friends of yours, and the hundreds of people that live here, just to escape.”  
Rhys sighed, thought for a minute, and nodded. “Fine. But there’s one thing I require.” Abavilliers gave him a long suffering look.

“Out with it.”

Rhys turned to the woman, waiting until her hateful eyes locked on his. “What’s your name?”

“Why should you know?” She snapped.

“Because, after all this is done, I’d like to have a name to put on your gravestone.”

The woman gave a dry, hacking laugh.

“What makes you think I’ll have a grave?”

“I will make sure of it myself,” Rhys promised, holding her gaze. She guffawed again, dissolving into a coughing fit.

“Oh, why the hell not. Yavala.”

“Any next of—”

“Oh kill me already! At this rate I’ll die before you’re done.”

“You heard the old hag,” Abavilliers sighed, pushing her forward. Rhys watched as Abavilliers forced Yavala to her knees in front of the first circle. A feeling of utter wrongness surged to life within him, but Rhys forced himself to walk over and kneel as well. He picked up his notebook and began to recite words from a long dead language.

Magic sparked at his words, a winding tunnel of color he’d never seen before, and wouldn’t see again. Yavala’s eyes seemed to glow, mirroring the cyclone of power around them. As the magic began to spin faster, masking all sound but what it contained, Yavala spoke for the last time.

“Roffinne Bezin.” Rhys didn’t—couldn’t—stop speaking, or he’d break the spell and likely kill them all, but he gave her a confused look. 

Then the world exploded in light.

Rhys’ skin crackled and his blood boiled. An inhuman scream pierced his ears. Throughout it all, his mouth kept moving, forcing out the guttural sounds required. As he came to the last verse of the chant, he reached for Yavala’s hands, pressing them to the first circle and watching as it filled with fractured light. Next, he pressed his own hand to the second circle, holding in a scream as something _tore_ out of him. The third circle filled with a marbled mass of what can only be described as everything. _It’s the world_ , Rhys thought hazily, forcing out the last few lines. The runes blazed amber, completing the ritual.

Yavala’s small body slumped to the floor, eyes wide and unseeing.

Rhys swallowed the guilt trying to block his throat.

He turned to Abavilliers, about to say something, _anything_ to break the silence. The man beat him to it. “Take this when you go through. It will help you find her.” He held up a small vial.

“Wait.” Said Rhys. “What.” Halwin went to repeat himself, but Rhys held up a hand. “We never said anything about _me_ going through.”

“You made the portal, I thought you were aware that only you can pass through.”

“Bullshit!”

“Rhys—”

“No. I’ve done enough for you. I’ve been here four fucking months without seeing my sister, without so much as stopping to _breathe_. So fuck you, I’m not going in. If you want whatever’s in there, you’ll go yourself.”

Halwin Abavilliers sighed, and moved his fingers in directions they should not have been able to go. The shadows rushed toward Rhys, grabbing his arms in a vice-like grip.

“Hey! Get off me!”

“I’m afraid I won’t be losing all my progress, just because you don’t want to go in the damn portal,” Abavilliers growled. “I have worked too hard. Given too much. No, you’ll be going, and if you come back empty handed you’ll lose more than just your sister.”

With that, the shadows were lifting Rhys off his feet, and hucking him headfirst into the portal. Halwin tossed the vial after him, a smirk on his face.  
Inside the portal, Rhys’ body burned with the energy of a thousand suns.

line

He came to lying flat on his back, the world spinning around him. Well a world. Rhys closed his eyes tight, gasping at the electric pop as his joints moved back into place. A dull ache started in his temples. Rhys waited for the pain to pass, for the earth beneath him to _stay still_. When he could finally sit up, he vomited onto a tree. That seemed to bring everything into focus, so he stood.

Stars, dim and much less plentiful than the blazing pinpricks of his sky, glowed. He stared at them for a while, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“When I go back, I’m going to kill Abavilliers,” Rhys said, addressing the stars. And then he turned his attention to the blazing circles of light behind him, that he’d come through. He shook his head in wonder, the echo of pure magic still racing through his bones. And then a glint caught his eye. He crouched to pick up whatever it was, and found it was the small vial. He turned it over a few times before uncorking it and gulping down its contents.

Immediately, his senses sharpened. A bush started to glow, the stars a blazing mess of light. _Magic_ , he thought. But for every glowing thing, there were billions that did not. Everything that didn’t glow had a certain… deathly feel to it.

Rhys glimpsed a beacon through the trees, gold and inviting. He started walking, running his fingers over the few glowing things he could find. The barest touch sent an electric pulse through his cells, and he smiled at the magic, so eager to interact with the world around it. He wondered why there wasn’t more.

Soon, the beacon started to pull more fiercely, and Rhys stumbled, tried to hold his ground. With his hands wrapped halfway around a tree to keep the magic from dragging him, he saw it. A creature stared at him from within the wood, a deer with eyes that glowed silver. Horns made from intertwined vines and roots sprung from its head, flowers blooming from its spots. The creature stilled at his attention, silver light wicking off it like heat from a flame.

The beacon tugged harder, and Rhys lost his hold on the tree. Soon he was running, trying to keep his balance on a strange stone road. Houses rose around him, some big and others small. Strange beasts lurked nearby, eyes dull and dead with magic swirling in their veins.

Finally, he came to a falling-apart house with light shining from every window. He didn’t dare try the front door, but ran around, finding an open window. He pulled himself through it, landing on the disaster of a floor. And then he saw her. The girl, light streaming from her skin in a blaze. Gold fingerprints coated every surface of the room, a few even on the ceiling. He stilled, fighting her pull long enough to study her form.

The girl’s hair was dark and fell just above her shoulders. Her skin was pale, and face sharp. She moved in her sleep, and Rhys realized he was staring. He cut it out and looked around. He needed a way to transport her without waking her. Before he could think of anything, she began to stir. Rhys froze. The girl whimpered and her brows creased. And then her eyes flew open.

She choked out a few words he couldn’t understand.

Rhys did the only thing he could think of. He slammed her head through the wall.

The girl was out like a light, though she still glowed. Rhys put a hand over his heart and let out a breath. He took a second to look around, spotting a few drawings on the walls and the more obvious mess. And then he turned back to the girl, slumped _into_ the wall. He winced and pulled her out, binding her wrists, ankles, and gagging her mouth with strips of her sheets before she could come to. He tried to get her out the window before she woke, but no luck there. She fought him every step of the way.

“Would you just—Goddamn—Stop headbutting me!”

She glared, spit out her gag, and started screaming in her own language.

“Shit! Shit! SHIT!” Rhys scrambled to shut her up, eventually just tying three scraps of cloth to keep her at least contained. The damage was done though, lights flipping on in another part of the house. He hoisted her into his arms and _somehow_ maneuvered her not so gently onto the ground. She protested with a loud oomph and quiet screaming. Rhys gave her a tired look.

The entire way back to the portal, the glowing girl wiggled and struggled, making herself an entirely unpleasant hostage. Rhys was glad to finally set her down before they left. As she stretched her hands and feet, looking for any possible loophole within her bonds, Rhys felt a horrible pang of guilt. This was her home, and he was taking her to _Halwin Abavilliers_ , the opposite. _But_ , he reminded himself, _this is for Mint and Nifa and Odie. This is to get them home. You do what you must to keep family safe. This is just a means to an end._

None of that changed what he was doing, or about to do. He could back out. Go home without the girl and say she ran—that she’d moved. He had options. But you know what overpowers options? Threats.

_“If you come back empty handed, you’ll lose more than just your sister.”_

Rhys looked at the girl again. She’d stopped struggling with her triple knotted bonds and started trying to glare a hole through him. He felt he deserved it, and would soon deserve worse.

Rhys Grey picked up the glowing girl, and stepped through the portal.


	3. Three: Halwin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halwin looks at a dead body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing two chapters today since three is so short! Thank you for reading!

Halwin Abavilliers looked down at the body. 

Yavala, it had said its name was. He let a victorious smile slide onto his lips. That inhuman monstrosity was dead—and he hadn’t even had to let the guillotine fall. Rhys Grey, the little lost prince, had done it for him. And now the boy was out getting him an even bigger weapon of destruction. Halwin didn’t know the child’s name, age, or gender, but he did know they would be a perfect little soldier with minimal convincing. After all, what child wouldn’t dream of saving the world, stopping a war?

They called it Death’s Reign.

It started in the heart of Thetby, by a woman so cutthroat she quickly became queen, and then spread to the shores of Windern. With Windern having survived the siege of a dragon (long forgotten), and a few wars of extinction, the new queen had her work cut out for her. Except, Windern’s defenses had begun to fall. The old kings wrung their hands and retreated to their castles, building walls they were so sure would stop the new queen. Dabria, they called her.  _ Death _ .

Unlike others, Halwin hadn’t laughed at the idea. Whatever powers she’d given blood and humanity to obtain worked wonders in a war. She felled armies with a slice of her finger, seduced kings and queens to her side with a mere kiss. She was ruthless. And used religion to guarantee loyalty from her followers.

Soon enough Halwin realized the only stable ground was by her side. He had started by working his way into her inner circle. Day by day, rank by rank, he played the part of zealous believer quite well. Well enough to be sent out into the world as a spy, someone to topple kingdoms from the inside. An informant and a recruiter all wrapped into one.

He hadn’t expected to enjoy the corruption as much as he did.

Halwin Abavilliers took one more glance at the imitation of a human corpse, gathered the shadows close, and let the beasts that lurked within feed. He did not look away as her skin pulled and tore and then split, as her bones popped and cracked and marrow leaked into the mouths of creatures more suited to devouring entire hordes of the unfortunate. As her blood drained beneath the claws of monsters just like her. When her bones, marbled with every color he could think to imagine, were picked clean, he swept them into his bag. His queen would enjoy the present, the ultimate confirmation of loyalty.

And he would enjoy being one step closer to feeding her to the shadows he courted.


	4. Four: Ella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ella punches a bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second chapter of today! Again, thank you for reading!

Ella’s body  _ burned _ . 

Like nothing she’d ever experienced, pain colonized her veins and laid waste to her skin. She spasmed in the boy’s—the  _ bastard’s  _ arms. Her mind went in circles trying to understand what the  _ hell  _ was going on. Thoughts wouldn’t stick, erased by agony. Her vision whited out as the pain climbed higher and higher, never ceasing.

And then nothing.

* * *

She woke to the sound of two people—men—arguing.

The one who was carrying her seemed agitated, while the second man’s voice was smooth. She kept her eyes closed, confused as to why the words wouldn’t make sense.

The first spluttered, and then Ella was moving. Every instinct told her to get up and fight, to at least  _ try something _ . But her whole body ached, and she could learn more by feigning sleep. There was no telling how long she’d been drugged—because she had to have been drugged to see what she had. The circle of light—the pain, all just a bad trip. It had to be. Though even as she tried to convince herself, phantom bursts of electricity surged through her whenever she moved.

When they arrived at her room, the bastard dropped her on a cloud-like mattress. Ella chose that moment to pretend to wake up, eyes flying open. She punched the bastard in the face. He yelped and stumbled back, saying something she couldn’t understand. So it  _ wasn’t  _ her. They were speaking another language. No matter. Ella got to her feet, jaw clenched.

“Where the fuck am I?”

The boy—bastard—whoever he was, stepped back, clutching his cheek.

“Tell me goddammit!” The boy disappeared before her eyes. 

Ella fell to her knees. “I’m— _ what the actual fuck _ ?”

But with the boy gone… Ella ran a hand through her hair and got to work. She canvased the room, finding it held a four poster bed, a dresser, a desk, bathroom, and a few tapestries.  _ Not bad,  _ she thought, rummaging through any and all drawers she could find. What she came up with: a letter opener, three sets of sheets, shards of mirror, and an iron rod from the tapestry holder. And it was still dark, perfect cover. Right as she was about to step onto the balcony, the door opened.

“Why hello there, Miss—” The man paused, taking in her array with surprise. “I’d suggest you put all that down.”

“So you speak English?” Ella asked, eyes narrowing.

“Something like that.”

Ella tilted her head, looking the man over. His hair and eyes were a deep black, and he was dressed in the same color. Though they were an eccentric set of clothes. Leather boots, a cloak.  _ Is that a sword?  _

“Who are you?” She asked, hand tightening on the letter opener.

“I’d love to tell you,” said the man, taking a slow step forward. “But I’d prefer we do that when you’re not trying to escape.”

“Well, that sucks for you.” Ella tried to take a step back, but her back hit a wall.  _ What? There wasn’t _ —A wall of pure shadow stood between her and freedom. “Well I’ll be fucking damned,” she murmured, eyes wide. “I’m not drugged, am I?”

“Afraid not.” She whipped her head around, finding the man right in front of her. She slashed forward blindly, striking out with the rod too. The man dodged both and had her restrained in a breath. Her weapons clattered uselessly to the ground.

“Let me go! Let me the fuck go!” She struggled in his grasp.

The man sighed. “I just want to talk, Miss Dale. Stop. Struggling.”

“You’ll have to kill me first, asshole.” She elbowed him in the gut.

“Play nice now,” he said. “Producing a knife and pressing it to her throat. “Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Ella stilled, the cold metal pressing into her skin just a fraction too hard. “Fine.”

The man stepped away, grabbing the rod and the shank. He slipped the knife away into some secret pocket and smiled coldly. Ella glared.

“Why don’t you come with me? I’ll have your room fixed by the time you’re gone.” He tossed the makeshift weapons onto her bed and grabbed her arm. “You must be hungry, we’ll get something to eat.”

And so the man yanked Ella from the room, dragging her down hall after mazelike hall.

* * *

They ended up in a library. The grandest one Ella had ever seen. It was three floors tall and seemed to be  _ made  _ of books. She almost forgot about her state as kidnapped. But of course, the man was right there to remind her.

“Stop gawking, it doesn’t suit you.”

“I’ll do what I want.”

He chucked and shook his head.

“What are you laughing at?”

He shook his head again, guard going up. “You remind me of someone, that’s all.” Ella didn’t know what to say, so she stayed quiet. The man sat her down in a small alcove guarded by four men. He took the seat across from her, a table between them. “What would you like to eat anyway? I’ll have the cooks make you anything you’d like.”

“I’ll just have water.”

“Request an item of cuisine, Miss. It is not wise to disobey in your position.”

Ella bristled. “Fine. I’ll have an apple fucking pie.”

“Language.”

She gave him a hateful look. He smirked.

The pie came faster than Ella thought one could be made, steaming and perfect.

* * *

_ “I’ll teach you how to make a pie!” Amanda grinned. _

_ “What kind?” Ella asked from her place on the counter. _

_ “Apple! My grandma’s recipe.” _

_ “Ooh, I bet it’ll be amazing with two generations of Singer talent.” _

_ “Flattery I say!” She giggled, pan already in hand. “Help me out though, wouldn’t you?” _

_ “Sure thing babe.” _

* * *

“Hello?” The man quirked an eyebrow when Ella started.

“Apologies. Spaced out.”

“Not to worry. The pie’s still hot.”

“Y’know I’m not really feeling—”

“Eat.”

And so she did. Every bite tasted like ash, memories slipping through the cracks in her walls. All the while, she and the man talked.

“So, your name  _ is  _ Ella Dale, correct?”

“Yup.”

“And I suppose you’d like to know my name as well?”

Ella set her plate on her lap and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think you quite understand what position I’m in. I don’t  _ want  _ to know your name. I don’t  _ want _ to know you at all. What I  _ want  _ is for you to tell me where the hell I am and why your little henchboy kidnapped me. I want to know what the fuck is going on.”

“My, you certainly have spirit,” he smiled. “I’ll give my name anyway. I’m Halwin Abavilliers, you are in Windern, Nimsea, and I’m afraid I can’t answer your other questions quite yet.”

“Where the fuck is Nimsea?”

Halwin sighed. “I suppose I’ll need a map.” He cleared the table and knelt beside it, bending his fingers in a way that made Ella’s stomach turn. The shadows streamed onto the wood, writhing in place. With great concentration, Halwin separated them into a set of blobs. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

Ella blinked, staying right where she was. “What the fuck what the  _ fuck _ . Okay I keep seeing impossible things. What the hell is that about? What  _ are  _ you?”

“Come down here and I’ll tell you.”

She stared at him a second, looking deep into his sea-black eyes. They looked endless and flat, like you could drown worlds in them. Ella sat, watching the shadows with open suspicion.

“So,” Halwin pointed to an island on the left side of the map. “This is where we are in Nimsea, Windern. This—” he pointed to another slightly between Windern and a different island— “is Lez.” He continued on to name three other islands going clockwise from Lez: Tolfair, Emsden, and Thetby.

“So I’m guessing this isn’t Earth.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“So the thing I saw—the glowing circle—that was what? Some kind of portal?”

“You’re a quick study,” Halwin said, dissolving the map with a twitch of his fingers.

“Why am I here?”

“I thought you’d be of use to me.”

“And magic’s real then?”

“More than you’ve ever imagined.”

Ella scratched the back of her neck. “Well shit. When can I go home?”

Halwin’s eyes narrowed. “Home? Why go home when you can have magic? Your world has no magical properties—why refuse it?”

“I have no interest in magic. Nor do I have any. My home is my home, and I’d rather stay where I’m comfortable.”  _ She’s there. I can’t abandon her. _

“No magic? You’re sure?”

“Yup. Pretty damn sure.”

“Well, perhaps—”

“No. Whatever you’re about to say or ask—no. Just send me home and find another kid to mess with. I promise you, you really don’t want to have to deal with me.”

A shadow passed over Halwin’s face. “Do not interrupt me again. You know nothing about me—or what I’m offering. You’d give up the possibility of power that easily?”

“I don’t need or want it. Power brings trouble, and I’ve had enough trouble. Now I’d like to go home. And I’m not asking.”

“Why don’t you think it over?” Halwin said, eyes darkening. “I’m sure we can find some sort of  _ compromise _ .”

“No. I don’t—”

Halwin barked out a set of orders in another language. Two of the guards rushed in, one older and one younger, and grabbed Ella by her arms.

“Hey! Get off me! You can’t fucking do this! Goddammit  _ Halwin _ ! Let me go!”

The man turned his back, hands clasped neatly. “Miss Dale, I highly suggest coming to a more agreeable frame of mind before we meet again. I’m not in the business of being denied.”

“What kind of sick—” The guards hauled her off before she could finish, spitting and yelling.

* * *

The guards escorted Ella to her room and shoved her inside, slamming the door after her. The click of a lock sounded like a gunshot.  _ Hopeless hopeless hopeless.  _ She cursed and ran a hand through her hair.  _ What the hell was all that? Useful? God I am not equipped to deal with this shit.  _ She turned to see if she could get anything else pointy, maybe a desk leg with some sharpening. But the room was functionally empty. Even the bed was gone. In its place, was a sleeping bag and a box next to it. They’d even stripped the walls—the bathroom door was locked.

“SHIT.” She yelled, kicking the wall, and sorely regretting it. While she nursed her aching foot, Ella looked through the box. There were only toiletries.  _ Damn. He’s smart.  _ She tried the balcony doors, but they wouldn’t budge. Kicking out the glass panels would alert the guards, too.

She was well and truly stuck.

* * *

As she lay in the sleeping bag, waiting for  _ something  _ to happen, she sank into a memory.

_ Ella dodged clumsy hands, her father’s black eyes looking back at her. _

_ “C’mere girly,” he slurred, frustration edging his words as she kept her distance. She stayed quiet, knowing by now that talking made it worse. He grunted and waved a hand at her, picking his drink up and chugging it. Or he would have, if it wasn’t empty. So he smashed the cup against the wall. “LOUSY! Motherfuckin’...” Ella pressed herself farther into a corner, body shaking. If she could just get to her room—he wouldn’t be able to get past the door. She started inching toward the hall. Her father’s head whipped up, angry eyes focusing on her. _

_ Bad bad bad bad bad bad. _

_ Ella ran. _

_ Tripping and stumbling, she raced down the hall with her heart beating frantically. Her father’s heavy steps came after her, shouting everything he would do to her when he caught her. Most of it she didn’t even understand. When she got to her room, her father’s foot blocked it from closing. She lunged for the window, wrenching it open before he caught her. _

_ “Ella baby, you shouldn’t have run from your father. It’s not very nice.” _

_ His hands wandered. She started crying. He didn’t flinch at the sound, even as sobs wracked her chest. But he was distracted. Ella took the moment to kick him in the balls and flung herself out the window. She landed on her elbow but was up and running before her father could pull himself off her floor. _

_ She ran for the only place she knew was safe: her best friend. She knocked on the Singers’ door at three in the morning, sobbing into her hands and disheveled in a way no nine year old should be. When no one answered, she started pounding on the doorbell. _

_ “What in the name of jesus! It’s three in the fucking morning!” Mr. Singer looked down at her and his face drained of color. “Ella? What—what happened? Nessa get down here!” _

_ And so, at three in the morning, the Singer family brought Ella Dale into their home. _

_ “Tell us what happened sweetie,” Nessa Singer pleaded, knelt in front of Ella. They’d bundled her up and brewed her some hot chocolate, it was freezing out and she hadn’t even had shoes on. Ella shook her head desperately, tears refusing to let up. _

_ “Nessa,” Martin Singer chided. “She’s obviously traumatized. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. For now, let’s get her set up on the couch.” _

_ “Mom? Dad?” Amanda peered around the corner, green eyes wide. “What happened?” _

_ “We don’t know sweetie,” Martin sighed. _

_ “Go back to bed,” said Nessa. “We’ll talk more in the morning.” _

_ “Can I talk to her first?” Amanda asked, a toy bear clutched in her arms. _

_ “I’m not sure that’s—” _

_ “Ness, c’mon. Amanda knows Ella better than we do.” Nessa nodded reluctantly. _

_ Amanda sat beside her best friend, snuggling up beside her. “Hey Ella Bella.” _

_ “‘Manda,” she sniffled. _

_ “Are you scared?” _

_ “No! I’m not—I’m not scared.” _

_ “Well,” Amanda held up her stuffed bear. “Major Leslie is. Would you keep her company tonight? She’s heard all these stories about you, and how much stronger you are than me. She knows you’ll keep her lots safer than I can.” _

_ Nessa and Martin Singer watched on in amazement as their daughter handed over the bear with a gentle smile and gave her friend a hug. _

_ “G’night Ella!” She chirped, heading off to bed. The parents looked back at Ella to see the smallest threads of a smile on her face. _

* * *

_ The next morning, the Singers called Child Protective Services. They did not send Ella home, and they did not make her talk about what happened. What they did do, was make her the best breakfast she’d ever had. She said as much after having three servings. After breakfast, they asked Ella if she wanted to go to school, and she said she would if Amanda was going. _

_ So at nine in the morning, the Singers drove their daughter and Ella to school. _

_ They picked her up too. _

_ And from then on, even when Ella had to go home, they received her with open arms whenever she knocked on their door, three am or not.  _

_ When Ella’s shoes wore out, Mrs. Singer replaced them with a smile. (“We can’t let our adopted daughter go without, can we?”) _

_ When Ella struggled with math homework, Mr. Singer sat her down and made her talk through the problems slowly. (“It’s okay to be frustrated, but why don’t you look at it this way?”) _

_ She still never got used to it, not in six years of kindness. _

* * *

Ella stared at the ceiling. Thinking of the Singers was painful, even before everything. Their love had been strange, alien. She hadn’t known anything but anger and indifference from her father, the occasional kindness from teachers. But the Singers? They were full of compassion and love, just like their daughter.

And now she was trapped again, just as she had been before. Her father had trapped her in his house,  _ demanded  _ she live with him. He sidestepped any effort the Singers made to adopt her, threatening to move if they didn’t stop. He’d kept her locked in that house with him, and now she didn’t even know the man trapping her. She didn’t know what he was capable of.

Ella sat up. She ran a hand through her hair. The feeling of being trapped kept sinking in farther and farther. The shadows seemed to press in on her, drawing the walls and ceiling with them. She stood and started pacing.  _ No, it’s okay. Breathe, please just breathe.  _ She wobbled on her feet, unable to catch a breath. Ella leaned against a wall and closed her eyes.  _ You’re fine. Everything’s fine. Just take a goddamn breath.  _ When she opened her eyes again nothing had changed.

“Goddamn.” Her panting gasps came faster and faster, hands curling into fists. The shadows spun around her, a whirlwind of terror and panic. She spun around, beating on the wall like it was a door.  _ Let me out let me out letmeoutletmeoutletmeout _ —The same burning from before, when she’d come through the portal, started in her bones. She doubled her efforts, sure that the shadows were a tidal wave behind her, just waiting for her to turn around before crashing down.

“Let me out,” she sobbed, eyes closed and forehead against the wall as her blows weakened. The burning intensified, and something  _ changed _ . Her eyes flew open, and she stumbled back. The veins in her hands were blazing with light, like golden ichor. Heat radiated from her palms, and her breathing slowed, breath by breath. “ _ What is this _ ?” 

Ella tore her attention from her hands to the wall. It, too, glowed. A color like rust, faded and crudely drawn. A keyhole no bigger than her index finger. The light—the  _ magic  _ in her hands hummed, lifting her hand level with the lock. And then it extended, a flimsy golden filament that twisted into the shape of a key. It slid home, turning without so much as a move or command. Once the key and lock clicked, her hands went dark and the golden key disappeared. The magic wasn’t done yet, though. She blinked and a door appeared, simple yet ornate in its carving. This had been what she was looking for, right? A way out.

Ella looked at her hands, down by her sides now. Her fingers twitched, as if to say they were no different—she was no different. But she knew better. This place—this  _ castle _ —had done something to her. Though she wasn’t exactly complaining, as she turned the knob and stepped through the doorway, into freedom.

She didn’t know it, but this was a decision that had changed everything. Something she would look back on later, and not know whether she should regret or be fond of. And though Ella Dale never had, or would, believe in destiny or fate, one should know that no one escapes it. The clutches of your predetermined path will never relent.


	5. Five: Rhys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys feels and does some Things.

The stars glittered like unshed tears. 

The night sky shimmered, seeming to go on forever. Rhys swung his legs back and forth, heels tapping balcony columns. He squinted, looking for a particular constellation. The Clever Fox kissed the horizon line, bright and twinkling. His mother had taught him to follow the Fox’s tail star if he was ever lost. It seemed like worlds ago.

The thought of his mother, leaned over his bedside with a small smile, had tears gathering in his eyes. Rhys wiped them away and sniffled, fishing a honey candy out of a secret pocket. The wrapper crinkled beneath his fingers, failing to drag the edges of the memory from his focus. An old friend had once rewarded him for remembering the good. Now it was his job.

Constellations got Rhys thinking about his mother.

He never got used to not having parents. Each absence hurt differently. His mother’s empty space hit him before bed, the time she used to tell stories about the Clever Prince and his fox. It hit in a garden, or while teleporting. She’d taught him to love life, and how to jump through space using the Abyss. Though Creator, his heart  _ ached _ for her within these crushing walls.

While his mother was absent, his father’s laugh boomed in empty hallways. Alkim Grey’s eyes flashed in mirrors. In dreams his father was reduced down to one, brutal, death with a messy aftermath. In Rhys’ daydreams Alkim rode in with armor flashing and hair so much like his son’s own curled around his ears. Rhys had more nightmares than daydreams.

Rhys folded in on himself, hugging his knees to his chest.  _ I miss them, so much.  _ The pain of it—right in his heart—for the life and the love he’d had overwhelmed him some nights. He’d been so  _ young  _ when they’d died. Ten. He’d been saved by chance, a passing advisor had scooped him from the floor and smuggled the prince from his kingdom. That advisor had helped him become a ghost, regaining his strength until he was old enough to fight. At ten he’d had a choice, to give up his birthright, birthburden, or dedicate his life to the throne. Some nights he regretted choosing the throne.

“I never had the chance to be a child. A real one, anyway,” he sighed. Talking to the stars was so familiar he didn’t even have to greet them anymore. “Now I’m a king without a throne, a boy with vengeance eating his heart.”

It never gets easier. Rhys knew that. But still he found himself wishing he hadn’t had to start growing up so young. That someone had been wise enough to tell him how revenge killed you from the inside, made you a stranger from kindness. No—that wasn’t revenge. That was his own misery. But it was all he had left. And all he could do to keep going. He had people to protect, his new family. A kingdom to regain, a false king to kill.

_ I am coming, uncle. _

His heart ached, vengeance ringing hollow in his chest.

Rhys sat outside a while longer, waiting until his hands were numb to step inside and take a hot bath. Once dry, he shuffled to the unfamiliar bed. Silken sheets enveloped him and his body sank like a stone. Sleep wrapped her smoky arms around his shoulders and grinned. Her teeth were shards of glass, bloody and broken, her body draped in burning stars. He did not get a full night of sleep.

The sound of the door creaking open had him twisting out from his sheets and into cool darkness before he could think. Rhys landed beside the desk, where his sword was propped up. He unsheathed it and got into his stance, eyes trained on the door. The door that hadn’t been opened. He was about to lower his sword when something moved to his right. 

A girl stood, eyes wide, a door that didn’t exist open behind her. He studied her, taking in her shining eyes and dark hair cut above her shoulders. Wait. He knew this girl. She’d punched him in the cheek—which still ached—after he brought her through the portal. After he  _ kidnapped  _ her.

The two stared at each other, neither making a move.

What was she doing there? How had she made the door? What did she want? He couldn’t ask her, language barrier and all. Well— _ he  _ couldn’t. But he knew someone that could. Rhys sheathed his sword slowly, putting it back in its place, and crossed the room. He could feel her watching him.

Rhys felt the walls behind tapestries, looking for the cavity he’d stumbled upon just last week. He found it soon enough, tugging the tapestry away and showing the girl. She looked at him with open suspicion. He waved her closer, insisting when she stayed still.

“Come on,” he said, putting his hands up. “I won’t hurt you.”

She tilted her head and took a step forward, hand leaving the doorknob. She looked back at it, shoulders relaxing a fraction when it didn’t disappear. And then the girl came closer, stopping a safe distance away. Rhys thought about how to convey something wordlessly, couldn’t, and then started down the passage without looking back. He hoped her curiosity would win out, and smiled to himself when he heard her soft footsteps behind him.

The passage was narrow and small, Rhys having to stoop a bit to avoid hitting his head. He’d found it when he tripped over his own feet, and almost fell down the steep steps. He hadn’t used it more than once, not really needing to when he could teleport to where it led. As he walked, he kept a hand on the wall, waiting for the door to appear. He had no idea just how far down the passage went, but the first door led out to the library. A minute later, he felt it. The girl bumped into his back and flinched away.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, tone soft. Rhys took a deep breath and pushed open the door, looking out into the dark maze of shelves. Fortunately no one was around. He looked back at the girl, the dim candle light of the library casting shadows on her face. She raised a brow and took a step back. Rhys offered his hand. She crossed her arms. He sighed and beckoned her forward. She peeked out of the doorway, checking it herself before coming out.

Rhys set a fast pace through the shelves, not looking back while he searched. Mint rarely left the library, thinking it her safe haven, a place no one would dare hurt her. But the question was, where would she be this late at night? The librarians all had quarters connected to the main library, though they were hidden for safety purposes.  _ Think think think,  _ he thought.  _ Mint would choose somewhere she’d have access to her work, and to things she likes to read.  _ The dialects section.

He looked back at the girl, whose eyes were watchful, and offered his hand again. She refused it again, so he sighed and started across the open floor. He kept his head on a swivel, looking for any late patrons, or Abavilliers’ spies.

Once they’d made it to the sprawling dialects section, Rhys stopped. There were three lanes he could enter through, none standing out to him. And then he caught sight of a light deep within the stacks. He dove for it, the girl on his heels as he chased the faint glow. He turned right, and then left, then right again. And then he stopped. Mint sat in a corner, a book in her lap and a good stack piled next to her. She looked up.

“Rhys? It’s late, you should be asleep.”

“I could say the same for you.”

She caught sight of the girl. “Who’s that?”

“Well, I was—”

The girl spoke over him, stepping forward. 

Mint raised a brow. “It’s a pleasure, Ella Dale, but how exactly do you know my friend?”

Ella spoke again.

“He did  _ what _ ? I see.” Mint’s voice was strained, anger bleeding into her smile and making it sharp. “I apologize for his stupidity. Why don’t we continue talking in my room?”

“Min—”

“Save it, idiot.”

She stood, blowing out the candle and scooping the huge stack of books into her arms, and then turned, leading them farther into the stacks.

When they’d gotten to a bare wall, Mint shoved her books into Rhys’ arms and lifted a key on a chain from her neck. She whispered a few words, and slid the key into the wall with the resistance of butter. When she turned it, the stones created a door-sized gap.

“Well go on now, in you go.” Rhys went first, stepping into a candlelit room with a small bed, bookshelf full to bursting, a table, and a dresser. He set the books on the table and avoided Mint’s glare. Silence hung over the odd group for a few moments. “Rhys, what Ella says, is it true?”

“I don’t know what exactly she said—”

“You kidnapped her out of her bed, out of her  _ world _ , to be a prisoner to a man named Halwin. Is this right?”

He avoided her gaze and shrugged.

“Rhys. Look at me.” He didn’t. “Look at me.” When he finally did, her mismatched eyes were blazing. “What have you done?”

“It’s the only thing I could have! I didn’t even have much choice in the matter.”

“Explain.”

“The deal was for me to build the portal, nothing more, nothing less. But then the bastard threw me in it and told me I would lose much more than my sister if I didn’t get him what he wanted.”

“So you  _ kidnapped  _ her?”

“Yes. I would do anything to protect my family. And I’m not saying this isn’t my fault, believe me I know I’ve fucked up. I do want to make it right, but not in exchange for your lives.”

Mint opened her mouth and closed it again, sighed, and looked to Ella.

“You can send her back, right?”

“If I have enough power, most likely. I just need my notes.”

Ella said something to Mint, and she let her in on the conversation.

“She says you’re an asshole,” Mint grinned.

“Tell her I’m well aware and—” he paused. “And that I’m sorry, however much it means.”

Ella replied before Mint finished, and Mint sighed. “While I’m  _ loving  _ being the translator, I think you should be able to talk to each other without me. Teach her Varsian, or better yet, Trade.”

“That’ll take more time than we have to leave Majon.”

“Well then you’ll have to teach her on the road.”

“You can’t be serious,” he huffed. “We can’t take her home with us.”

“You made this mistake, Rhys. That sounds like a good way to  _ start  _ fixing it.”

“I don’t even know how to get her out without Abavilliers—Halwin, noticing it.”

“You’re a goddamn Grey Mage. An Alma,” she shot back. “You need to get her home. To her family.”

Ella looked between the two of them, eyes unreadable, before saying something. Mint paled.

“What’d she say?”

“She, um. She doesn’t have a family to go back to.”

“Does she even want to go back?” Rhys asked.

“She doesn’t want to be here.”

Rhys sighed. “I suppose that’s fair enough. I’ll try and find a way to get her home, though I’m not all that sure I can find the power for it.”

“She says you’d better.”

“I will,” he said. “But I do have one question. How did you get into my room?”

“She doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rhys looked between them. “I see.”

“Her world’s magicless.”

“Oh.”

Silence hung between the three of them. Seemingly inescapable.

“I guess we’ll have to get back to our rooms sooner or later,” Rhys sighed, standing.

Mint nodded. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. I have some books that might help with the language thing.”

And then they left. The pair said nothing, winding through bookshelves and then the passageway. When they came back to Rhys’ room, the door was still there. He looked at it more closely, making out vines and dragons carved into the dark wood. He turned to Ella, who looked thoroughly tired, and offered his hand for her to shake. She did, grip tight and eyes unreadable.

And then she was gone, the door melting back into stone as soon as it shut.

He still wondered how she did it, and how many more mysteries she had up her sleeve.

Rhys sighed and fell back onto the bed. Things had just gotten infinitely more complicated. He had one more life to protect—a girl he didn’t know, nonetheless.  _ I’m insane,  _ he thought, eyes fluttering closed.  _ But maybe I can make this work. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not loving this one, so I might edit it later. As always, thank you for reading!


	6. Six: Ella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ella panics a whole lot.

_ Ella rolled over in her sleeping bag, between sleep and wakefulness. _

_ Images flashed through her mind, blurry and dim. Sound trickled into her ears. She turned over again, trying to make her lips form words. A shadowy figure stood, turned, and walked away. Ella lurched forward, hand outstretched and eyesight sharpening for one horrifying second. The ground, uneven beneath her feet, crunched. She made out bleached white shapes, edges sharper than steel. Flames roiled around her, extending out toward the retreating back of the figure. Their dress flashed molten gold before the dimness was closing in on her, and Ella was left stumbling among countless stolen souls. _

* * *

Ella woke in a cold sweat, breathing rapid.

She didn’t have to wait long before a guard came in to allow her bathroom privileges. The mirror she’d broken had been replaced, though she couldn’t break it again without anyone hearing. As she got ready, and bathed in the already filled tub, her thoughts strayed to the bastard, or as his friend had called him, Rhys. She’d followed last night’s conversation as well as she could, though certain things had slipped through the cracks.

Ella fiddled with her necklace. She needed a plan, something to focus on while she figured out her situation. For now, she had two options: work for Halwin, or go with Rhys and Mint. Only one so far gave her the chance of returning home, to the only people that had ever loved her.

The guard banged on her door, she assumed it meant  _ hurry up _ . Ella dressed in the only clothes she had, her jeans, black shirt, and black hoodie. They were comforting, a mark of her world. Ella twisted her wet hair into a bun, took a deep breath, and stepped outside. Her guard, hair and eyelashes snow white, who looked like they were coated in frost, took her elbow and led her into the maze of hallways.

Ella soon gave up on memorizing lefts and rights, as the guard marched her through halls of gold, thin stone corridors, and even a courtyard full of pink roses. Ella quite enjoyed the walk, taking in everything she could. Something she could take back to the darkness of her room.

Eventually the pair stopped in a field littered with training dummies and people using them. Ella’s eyes locked on the displays of magic, flames, water, some sort of conjured arrows, and one unfortunate fellow using mud out of a bucket. He was unfortunate in Ella’s mind until he shaped the mud into spikes and skewered his dummy whole. She forced down a smile.

“I assume you’re the one I’m to babysit?” Brought Ella back to the present. A woman, about college age with twin dutch braids, kaleidoscope eyes, and an almost predatory smile, looked to Ella for an answer.

“I suppose so,” she shrugged, watching the mud-guy twist in the air and deliver a powerful roundhouse to his dummy.

The woman cleared her throat. “I’m Lorelei Cruz, one of Abavilliers’ top soldiers.” She offered her hand. Ella shook after her guard threw her a look. The white haired guard looked distinctly uncomfortable out in the open. Or just being close to Lorelei. “So, Dale, Abavilliers asked me to give a demonstration of my talent. If you were ever unsure of staying in Majon, I hope this clears things up.”

Ella nodded, hands in her pockets. She looked at her guard out of the corner of her eye. Their fidgeting had increased tenfold while Lorelei talked. When the brunette moved toward mud-guy, they relaxed significantly.  _ This talent of hers must be offensive,  _ Ella thought, turning her attention to Lorelei.

The woman settled comfortably into a stance similar to a grappler’s, the mud-guy going more for a boxing type. Lorelei struck first, not with fists or a kick, but with a small knife mud-guy did everything to avoid. As they fought, mud-guy hurling spears or kicks, Lorelei dodged them all. He wasn’t so lucky. First, she snagged him on the forearm, something that didn’t seem too big of a deal to Ella, but had mud-guy chalk faced. His moves turned purely defensive, and Lorelei advanced with a razor sharp smile. In a blink, the woman had her tiny knife to mud-guy’s throat, barely touching the skin.

“What do you say Dale? Should I give him something to cry about?” She called.

Mud-guy’s eyes darted around frantically, steam rising from where skin met blade.

“You beat him. Let him go. Now.” Lorelei stiffened at the clear order, her smile twisting.

“How about a little scar? A parting gift?”

Ella clenched her jaw as mud-guy began to squirm. “Just let him go.”

Lorelei sighed and released him. Mud-guy sank to the ground and clenched his fists, breathing hard. Ella’s guard helped him to his feet and guided him in the direction of the castle, leaving her alone with Lorelei Cruz.

“Do you like my talent?” Lorelei smiled, sheathing her blade in a calf holster. “It took me  _ ages  _ to develop.”

“It’s nice. What exactly is it?”

Lorelei tilted her head, strange eyes glinting. “Acid, the corrosive kind. I fashion it into weapons and poisons, though blades are my specialty.” Her hand hovered over a knife holstered on her hip, fingers drumming on the handle. “But what do you do? I’ve heard it’s just as interesting as my talent.”

“I don’t do anything,” Ella said, voice firm.

“Sure you do.” She came closer, moving like she was stalking prey. “What’s your talent? You can show me.”

Ella leaned away. “Really, no talent here.”

Lorelei stared at her awhile, analyzing. Ella returned the favor. The woman had a scar from the corner of her lip to halfway down her throat. It wasn’t pretty, hesitation marks clear. Her clothing was practical, black pants tucked into sturdy boots and a billowy white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A mustard yellow cloak was tied around her waist. Ella spotted two more knives, one peeking out from her wrist and another sticking out from her boot. And then she saw her hands. Her copper complexion was marred by wrinkled, scar-white skin. When Lorelei noticed her looking, she pressed her hands together.

“It’s rude to stare.”

“It’s rude to push.”

“Touché.”

They stood there, the air cooling. Until Ella broke the silence. “Would you answer a question for me?”

She smirked. “Only if you answer one of mine. Call it a trade.”

“Why not. Why—”

“Why don’t we walk and talk? It’s about time I got you back to the castle. Cella’s probably having a heart attack, which is lovely to imagine, but still.”

Ella nodded, waiting for her to grab a bag before they started weaving through a highland path Ella hadn’t noticed before.

“So how do you speak English? And who’s Cella?”

“Oh I don’t,” she said. “I just carved the rune for language into my ankle and was done with the whole thing.”

“Wait. You can do that?”

“That you can. It’s quite easy and efficient.”

“Will you teach me how?”

“Wait wait,” Lorelei smirked. “It’s my turn for a question.” Ella wrinkled her nose. “Why is Halwin Abavilliers interested in you?”

“Oh buddy,” Ella chuckled. “I wish I knew, so I could stop doing whatever it is I’m doing.”

Lorelei gave her a look of disgust. “Abavilliers’ interest and favor is a blessing. Why  _ don’t _ you want it?”

“Wait wait, it’s my turn for a question,” Ella parroted. Lorelei snorted.

“Will you teach me the language rune?”

“No. Now answer mine.”

“Hey! Unfair!”

“Hey!” False cheer dripped from her grin. “I don’t care!”

Ella frowned. “If I answer your question will you teach me the rune?”

“Maybe, you’ll have to give me an interesting answer.”

Ella thought, and thought, and thought as they picked their way through the high grass.

“I don’t want anything from him because this sounds like more than I bargained for. I don’t want to be special, I just want to save enough money to get out of my father’s house and fuck off to wherever. I don’t want his magical offering, because I’ve had better.”

“And what’s better than power, glory?” She said it like she couldn’t imagine anything else, with great offense at there being anything else.

“A damn good apple pie.”

Lorelie threw her a look that managed to convey equal amounts of horror and confusion.

“I don’t get the joke.”

“I didn’t make one.”

They lapsed into silence that lasted the entire walk back into the castle. Before Ella could ask where they were going, Lorelei swept off down the hall, leaving Ella to catch up.

The people Lorelei walked past looked down and away, clearly practicing the philosophy of: if I don’t see it, it doesn’t see me. Which Ella regarded as bullshit, because Lorelei drank in their fear with a grand smile.  _ What exactly are they so afraid of? What the hell did she  _ do _ to generate this much fear? _

Ella’s train of thought abruptly crashed when she recognized the hall she was in, and where it led.

“Oh I know this place,” Ella said. “It’s the library.”

Lorelei gave her a look. “Good for you.” 

Ella followed her through an array of stacks, struggling to keep up with all the twists and turns. At the end of the chase, Lorelei plopped a book in Ella’s arms and grinned at her flushed face. “This’ll tell you what you need to know and need. Payment for the interesting answer.”

“Thanks.” Ella ran a hand over the cover, which was in another language. “Hey wait I can’t read this!”

“See you around, Ella!” She called from deep within the stacks. Ella hadn’t even seen her slip away.

Ella looked from the medium sized tome in her arms to the spot Lorelei Cruz had previously occupied. “Well that was interesting. I still don’t know who Cella is.”

“That’s me!” Ella’s guard dashed toward her. “What did she do? Did she feed you anything?”

“Wait you speak—you have a language rune?”

“All soldiers do,” they waved it off. “Now answer me. Did she feed you anything?”

“No.”

Cella’s shoulders fell in relief. “Good. I would’ve lost my job if she’d killed you.”

“Um?” Ella gave them a look of concern. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m supposed to take you to lunch, so let’s go.” They paused, and trying to look stern, added. “And no more talking.”

Ella let them lead the way, book tucked under one arm.

* * *

Lunch consisted of a stew that wasn’t half bad, and a trip up an ancient looking tower. Cella slid back into the stern guard mask with effortless grace, though Ella continued to try and analyze them. She wondered at their white eyelashes. They caught the light in a way that made it seem like they were glowing. And their eyes were the color of fog. They carried themself with their head held high and shoulders squared. Though they had a light limp. They  _ had _ said they were a soldier.

Ella followed Cella up a long stairway, into a room with a cluttered table and a balcony, and frowned at the man leaned over it. Halwin himself.

“Why am I here?” Cella didn’t respond, standing near the door and looking straight ahead.

“Keeping me company,” answered Halwin instead, standing and giving Ella a small smile. “I have work to do, and I wouldn’t want you cooped up in that room of yours, so we’ll work in silence. Seems you already have something to puzzle over.”

“I can’t read it.”

“Well, I suppose that’s half the fun.”

“It’s really not.”

Halwin shrugged and started rifling around the table. “ _ Where is it? I swear I put it somewhere…”  _ he muttered.

Ella sighed and walked out to the balcony, sitting against it and cracking open the book. She might as well see if she could find anything.

Turns out, trying to read a foreign language when you don’t know their alphabet or even a distinction between letters and numbers, is pretty damn impossible. Ella gave up a few pages in, opting instead to cloud gaze. She found exactly one turtle, a half a dog mixed with half a bus, and something that looked slightly like a dragon.

_ Sunlight streamed from an opening in the clouds, and Ella closed her eyes. She could easily fall asleep there, on the picnic blanket, touching shoulders with Amanda. Before she could, she wiggled under Amanda’s arm until it felt like she’d always been there. _

_ “We fit,” said Amanda, nails massaging Ella’s scalp. Ella couldn’t help but melt even further. Amanda continued on, almost unaware that she was speaking. “It’s like we’re a matched set, and like destiny shoved us together before we even really knew it. But we did, we knew when we met—that we were two of a kind. I love it, love being someone with you.” _

_ Ella agreed wholeheartedly, snuggled up in Amanda’s warmth. Before sleep tucked her consciousness away, she caught the scent of grass and vanilla. It followed her into her dreams. _

Ella sat up and frowned. She could still smell—

“Vanilla and grass,” she breathed, looking up to the cloud covered sun to keep tears from falling.  _ Why? Why did I have to remember that?  _ She folded in half and clutched her stomach, eyes wide open and glazed over. She couldn’t escape the field—Amanda—the smell of fresh grass and vanilla. Images flashed rapid fire every time she blinked. Her autumn orange hair twisted up in a braid, calloused hands from woodworking with her father, the origami stars by her windowsill. Ella’s breath came fast and uneven, black threatening to overwhelm everything.  _ Is this what she saw, right before it happened? _

Ella stumbled to her feet.

“I’m tired,” she announced. “I’m going back to my room.”

Before anyone could get a word in, Ella was out the door and running down the stairs. Cella was on her heels within seconds, betraying no emotions as Ella stumbled through the castle. It was as if she thought, by running away, she could escape the tears.

It was a nice try, really.

“Hey—” said Cella, when Ella reached a dead end. “Look, your room’s this way.”

They took Ella by the arm and led her gently up the stairs.

When the pair got to her room, Ella sank gratefully into her sleeping bag, fully intending to sleep the pain away. Until she realized she wasn’t remotely tired. But she couldn’t just lay there. Memories are like shadows under the bed. They wait until you fall asleep to pounce. And that wouldn’t be happening again—not on Ella’s watch. So she looked around for something—anything—to distract.

Hey eyes wandered to the wall. The magical door pulled at her, and she remembered how she’d asked for escape and it’d granted it.  _ I could get out of here,  _ she thought.  _ I could keep running. _

She made her way over, steps light. She tried to find the exact spot, but she didn’t remember where it was. And then she sat there. She had no clue how to jumpstart the magic—if she could at all. What if it only worked at a specific time? Or maybe it had a trigger word? Ella ran through countless scenarios and possibilities. But she couldn’t get the door to appear. She turned her back to the wall and slid down, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth.

“I need to get out,” she pleaded. “I’m not—I can’t stay here. Please. Let me out.”

The tears came.

Like raindrops, they slid down her cheeks in rivulets. Sobs threatened to tear out of her chest, as memories became stronger and stronger behind her eyelids.  _ I don’t want this please make it stop I don’t want to remember please— _

Her hands began to burn.

Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t want to open her eyes and see dark palms. She wanted the magic to be real.  _ Her  _ magic. She peeked open one eye. A strangled giggle made its way out of her mouth. Relief surged through her as her veins lit from the inside. She didn’t waste time, standing and searching for the keyhole—which she found without issue. The golden filament molded itself into a key, the door appeared, and Ella stepped through without much care for what was on the other side.

* * *

It was not Rhys’ room she stepped into, but Mint’s. She turned to the door, and made to go back through. Maybe she could try again? If it sent her to a different place every time maybe she could go somewhere better.

“Hey wait! Don’t go!” Ella cursed herself and turned around.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come here. I’ll be going now.” Before she could step through the threshold, Mint grabbed her shoulder.

“Wait,” her eyes searched Ella’s. “Please.”

Ella gave her a suspicious glance. “What do you want?”

Mint raised a brow. “You’re the one who came through the door, I ought to ask you the same question.”

“I just—I wanted to escape, alright?”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s understandable.”

“Yeah.”

Silence hung like freshly fallen snow.

“Hey why don’t—”

“I should—”

“Sorry you can—”

“No no it’s fine—”

They stopped. The tips of Mint’s ears were red. Ella’s eyes bored holes into the floor.

Mint braved onward. “If you want to escape, we could take a walk?

“Please.”

And that is how, somewhat early in the evening, Ella Dale and Mint Boutler ended up walking side by side on the open moore. The sky was just sinking into hazy dusk, darkness not far off. Wind ran fingers through Ella’s hair and cupped Mint’s cheeks. Grass whispered stories long forgotten. They walked until the moon lit their steps, and stars blazed overhead.

Ella chanced a look up and stopped in her tracks. “Woah.”

“What is it?”

“There’re so many stars here,” she said reverently.

Mint nodded. “Are there not as many, where you’re from?”

“In places, but where I lived you could see a couple constellations at most.”

“We can lay down and look, if you like.”

They did.

Ella talked very little, letting Mint point out the major constellations and one other she knew.

“It’s Rhys’ favorite, the Clever Fox. It isn’t even an official constellation, just something his mother made up.”

“Mm.”

“And there’s Varius, the god of spring. See those three stars?” She pointed. “Those are his feet.”

“Wait. Three feet?”

“The legends say it was a gift from before he became a god.”

On and on they went, talking about the stars.

Eventually, Ella got to her feet. “I should be getting back, before they realize I’m gone.”

“I’ll walk you.”


	7. Seven: Rhys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys receives the fruits of his stupidity.

“So you’re going back on your word, then?” He spat.

“What word? I swore nothing, you signed no contract.”

“Contract?” Rhys’ voice lowered dangerously. “You. Promised.”

Abavilliers raised one sculpted brow. “I don’t recall promising you anything.” Rhys glared, stood from his seat at Abavilliers’ table, and made to leave. “Not so fast. I’m afraid I can’t on good conscious, allow you to roam free. Not after you committed an egregious sin.”

“Excuse me?”

“You opened a portal to another world, endangering the lives of this one.”

“Seriously,” he deadpanned. “Are you really doing this?”

“You’re a criminal, Rhys. I have to.” Abavilliers stood, straightened his cuffs, and shouted. “Guards!”

Three of Abavilliers’ dogs poured into the room, one wrenching Rhys’ hands behind his back, another fastening cuffs around his wrists, and the third speaking in hushed tones with their master. As the cuffs locked into place, it felt as if all the air had escaped his lungs. Rhys forced his spinning head around to look at the metal encircling his wrists. Runes wound the entire length of each cuff, glowing bright grey. He wheezed as the guards shoved him forward.

And then, nothing.

* * *

He woke in a cold wasteland. Rhys struggled to lift his eyelids, vision sliding in and out of focus. Sounds around him bounced and wobbled, as if underwater. He couldn’t move, muscles disobeying direct orders.

Where was he?

The floor was stone, a degree above freezing. The walls were dark and stained, bars making up one wall. The world seemed to have a blue tint. A voice broke through the water, urgent. Why were they urgent? What did they need? Rhys closed his eyes, quite tired and very set on not doing anything. It wasn’t like he could move anyway. But the voice kept talking, making more noise, really. He couldn’t hope to understand them through all the fog.

A hand snatched his wrist.

Rhys bucked away on instinct, searching for that familiar notch in perception that would allow him into the Abyss and out of this person’s grasp. It wasn’t there.

“Rhys goddammit! Stop struggling!” He struggled harder, just to be contrary. “Bastard—Just—Oh come on! Let me burn the damn drugs out of your system in peace!” He started to recognize the voice as it became clearer.

“Nifa?” He croaked.

She let go of his wrist. “Finally.”

“What happened?”

“What I told you would happen. That man conned you. And us.” She sighed, and Rhys opened his eyes to see her pinch the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, what did you think would happen?”

“Obviously not this,” he said, testing the cuffs around his wrists and ankles.

“Obviously,” she mocked. “Well. What’s next, idiot dearest?”

“A prison break.”

* * *

Before the aforementioned break could be made, a few things had to happen. Namely, the cavalry had to be called in. Nifa had been the first to find out, so she’d alert her sister and would track down Odelan. And since Odelan was a day or two out of range, that would leave Mint and possibly Ella to assist him with breaking out.

To be honest, his hopes weren’t high.

That is, until a door opened behind him. “Rhys, what did you get yourself into now?”

“In my defense—” he started, scrapped, and retried. “Trouble. Help me out?”

“You’ll have to start paying me when I bring you books,” Mint warned, stepping aside to reveal Ella. Ella waved shortly and knelt beside him, turning over his cuffs until she found the lock. Rhys watched as her hands pulsed with light, and a key extended from her index finger.

“That’s awfully handy,” he said, rubbing his wrists as she worked on his ankles. When he was free, he stood and looked around. “How long was I in here?”

“A day or so,” Mint supplied. “Long enough for us to figure out how to get you out.”

Ella looked between the two and gestured to the door.  _ Let’s go. _

They did, Mint leading them into her room off the main library. It was covered top to bottom in maps of the castle.

“What’s this?” said Rhys.

“There was a lot of trial and error before we decided to try Ella’s… whatever it is she can do.”

Ella nodded and distributed three backpacks. Mint explained. “I know you wanted to be the one to tell us when we could leave, but it has to be now. Thetbian forces are a  _ day  _ from Majon. Odie’s still out there, and now Nifa is too. We can’t wait anymore Rhys.”

He cursed. “You’re right. But I can’t leave without Faye.”

“Do you even know if she’s here?”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I have to see. What if it was Nifa trapped here? You know you’d do anything.”

“There’s a difference between being a good sibling and the desire for one.”

They stared at each other, grey eyes warring with one blue and one honey.

Mint sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Thank you, really.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. At that moment, shouting started up somewhere in the library. “And that’s our cue.”

Mint led them through the stacks, shoving them around corners or behind tapestries when soldiers came too close. Thoughts raced through Rhys’ brain, and he tried to calm his pattering heart. He still had no clue how to find his sister. If her proximity wasn’t some lie. He was so caught up, that he tripped over a haphazardly placed pile of books. The girls froze, but it was no good. The guards shouted and came closer, circling like dogs, moments away from spotting them.

“Can you make a door?” Mint asked Ella, who hissed an uncertain reply. “What do you mean you  _ don’t know _ ?”

“Wait. I can try to teleport out of here,” Rhys said.

“You’ll take our arms off!” Said Mint, ever the realist.

“I might. Or I might not. I find those odds favorable.”

“You’re insane,” she muttered, taking Rhys and Ella’s hands.

Rhys took a deep breath, and stepped into the Abyss.

The sensation was not unlike trying to step through a wall. Though as he stepped, and the chaos around him peaked, he started to sink through the wall and into the Abyss. His senses dampened, and his blood began to slow.  _ Keep moving.  _ He gritted his teeth and put one foot in front of the other, dragging the weight of two medium-sized human beings and three backpacks behind him. But everything else wasn’t important. What mattered, was the tight-rope thin sliver of ground that would hold him, that he wouldn’t sink through and down into death. One foot in front of the other.

* * *

_ “It’s just like walking across a tight-rope, love. You’re just doing it in the dark.” Marzia Grey smiled, black hair piled atop her head and eyes creased in gentle encouragement. “You can do it, my strong boy. My clever prince.” _

_ Alkim Grey nodded, face an older version of his son’s. “The Abyss is a layer below our world, where magic flows in veins of crystals. There are paths, thin but there, that were carved out by Almas of the past. Your ancestors. Walking these paths is but a matter of will and skill. I know you have will enough, so we’ll start with skill.” _

_ “I don’t know how to teach you,” Lucien Boutler sighed. “I’ve never been one for magic. But I can swing a sword.” _

_ “How does that have to do with magic?” Asked Rhys, eleven years old and not very thrilled at being indoors on a sunny day. _

_ “You need to develop a rhythm while fighting, breathe without thinking, swing with barely a thought. Everything needs to spin off of intuition in a moment. Perhaps you can apply it to teleporting.” _

* * *

Rhys hadn’t gotten it. His father and mother’s advice had been from experience. Straightforward, if hard to master. But Lucien’s? From sword fighting to teleporting. He’d brushed off the wisdom because it hadn’t made sense, not in the moment. But now? Now, the rhythm found him, and each step across the tight-rope became lighter and lighter, faster and faster. At first he walked, veins of crystals bursting to life around him, and then he ran, barely thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!


	8. Eight: Ella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad things, also a dragon.

The darkness passed in a second. 

A horrible, wrenching, second. Rhys tore back into reality, and Ella slid onto the floor, shuddered.

“Never again.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Mint said, pulling Ella to her feet and leaning her against a wall.

It appeared that they were in Rhys’ room.

Ella took in the luxurious bed with slight envy, drawn more toward the bookshelves. Rhys himself tore through hiding spots for his own things, Mint consulted a map on the whereabouts of a girl named Faye, and Ella rooted through the bookshelves.

“We’ve scouted out everywhere but the king’s quarters,” Mint said. “I don’t know where exactly in them, but she has to be in there somewhere.”

“How big exactly are the king’s quarters?” Ella asked.

“A whole cave system.”

She looked up sharply. “We can’t search that in twenty minutes.”

Mint shrugged and shook her head. “We have to.”

“Sounds like a death wish to me.”

Rhys started talking. Mint immediately objected.

“No! You’re not going in alone.”

Counterargument.

“She wouldn’t know how to find us!”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Stated a point.

Mint thought, foot tapping aggressively.

Ella made a note to carve in the language rune as soon as possible.

“You’d better bring her back in one piece. Or bring back the pieces for Nifa to try to reattach.”

_ Wait. What? _

“So what exactly is happening?” She asked, looking between the two friends.

“You get to go with him to retrieve his sister while I create a diversion. You both have abilities that center on getting away from places, so hopefully you can pick up each other’s slack.”

“Sister? I never agreed to that.”

“Too bad. I’ll see you later, Ella.”

Before she had time to protest again, Mint was slipping into the hall.

Leaving her with Rhys and the language barrier.

He didn’t waste time, grabbing her wrist and hauling her through the sharp darkness. They landed in a tangle of limbs in front of an impossibly sized door. Painted gold, and carved into the gaping maw of a dragon. The lock was bigger than Ella was tall. She gave the boy a look.  _ You expect me to open that?  _ He returned her look.  _ Yes. _

She stepped up to the hunk of intricate metal, waiting for her hands to glow.

Nothing.

She tried closing her eyes and willing them to life, talking to them, scolding, waiting for a while, and shaking them really hard.

Nothing.

She looked back at the boy, panic written across her face. He stepped forward, motioning for her to put her hands together like she was praying. She did, though it earned him yet another look. Rhys took a deep breath in through his nose, and let it out with his mouth. She did the same. They continued, Ella mimicking Rhys and trying to clear her mind. She imagined her thoughts and emotions on a table, cluttered and disorderly, and simply swept them onto the ground. She could organize them later, but now she needed space to work. Room for her magic to flow into.

Her hands began to burn.

She chanced a look and saw her veins filling with gold. Light poked through her skin. Ella grinned, giving Rhys an awkward side hug. He blinked rapidly, seeming to reset before following Ella to the lock. She laced her hands together and willed the key to be bigger, stronger. And it was, filaments from each finger and palm winding together to make a comically huge key that slid home, clicking as it turned.

The key dissolved, Ella’s hands going dark. For a second she thought she’d done it wrong. Then the doors rumbled, small pieces of the ceiling raining down at the movement. The dragon’s jaws folded inward, giving way to a dimly lit hall. The torches blazed with azure fire, which licked at the walls as if they too, could be burned. Ella was very suddenly glad they couldn’t.

Rhys started forward, keeping to the left. Ella walked beside him, watching the doors close behind them. A knot started in her stomach. She ignored it.

The tunnel was made of rough stone, and freezing cold. She quickly figured out it was the fire. Between two torches was the sweet spot, not too cold to handle, while right next to one was icy hell.  _ This is how popsicles are made,  _ she shivered.  _ I refuse to be popsicled.  _ The tunnel walls stretched up and up, receding into darkness eventually, while the middle of the tunnel was full of the same inky blackness.  _ Who—or really what, would need such a huge amount of space? _

As they trudged on, Ella thought of the day she’d spent planning Rhys’ escape with Mint. She’d met yet another of his friends, and Mint’s sister, Nifa Boutler. The girl looked like an angel and spoke in a harsh accent that Ella would’ve been hard pressed to decipher even if she knew the language. Nifa blazed through their efforts and came up with her own faster than Ella could get used to her presence in the room.

_ “She’s something,” said Mint. “My sister.” _

_ “Agreed.” _

They came to a fork in the tunnel. Rhys considered a moment before going straight. His face looked older in the half light, lines drawn where they shouldn’t have been. Ella studied him. His eyes were framed by deep purple circles, so he didn’t sleep much. That she could relate to, though she wondered what kept him up at night. Which demons haunted his dreams. He carried himself with an air of dignity, spine ramrod straight and movements graceful. He was, in all ways, otherworldly. She looked away before he could catch her staring.

She turned her train of thought to think about what would come after. It seemed there wasn’t much else she could do than travel with Rhys and his friends (and sister now too?). Though she wondered if he would really let her go home, now that she proved to have some magical ability. He would, or she’d make him, she decided.

The tunnel expanded into a cathedral sized cavern lit with pits of frigid flames. Ella pulled her sleeves over her hands in an attempt to breathe life back into her burning fingers. Pillars of gold and marble held the ceiling from kissing the floor, the cave going on for longer than she cared to look. The floor was an indeterminate depth of gold and jewels. Jewelry only fit for royalty was mixed in with a variety of coins. Some were bigger than a trash can lid. She even glimpsed a few crowns.

She and Rhys shared a look laced with concern.

And then someone—some _ thing  _ was screaming.

The sound was high pitched and split the air with its agony. Rhys started toward it, slipping out of Ella’s reach before she could grab him.  _ No you dumbass. That could be a trap.  _ She huffed and started after him, unable to stop, lest she sink into the sea of finery.

“Hey! Maybe stop!” She called, her shorter legs damning her to watch his retreating back retreat  _ further _ . Her glare pierced the back of his head. “Can you just wait?  _ Asshole _ .” Ella gave up talking and waded after him, hands starting to numb and face stuck in a glare.

As she walked, she scooped pieces of gold into her pockets, even palming a brooch that weighed  _ at least  _ two pounds. The first half of her reasoning being the shine, the latter half value. There was no point to it sitting and gathering dust.

Ella looked up from her acquiring to see Rhys was nowhere in sight. In fact, the only sign he’d been there at all was his rapidly disappearing trail. Ella quickened her steps, pockets clanking at a disturbingly similar frequency to the still going screams. She picked up the pace.

What lived here? She wondered. Mint had called this place the king’s quarters, but these were too enormously huge to fit a king. Too much gold, something out of a book. And in books, what hoarded gold? An image of a dragon king, teeth stained and nostrils leaking smoke, flickered to life. Ella shivered beneath insufficient clothing. She crossed her fingers and asked whatever was out there that there would be no dragon.  _ We don’t have time for it,  _ she argued.

When Rhys’ trail altogether vanished, Ella grimly set her course to the source of the screaming. Something told her the person attached to all that pain was the girl they were looking for. Who  _ Rhys  _ was looking for. That begged many a question, but Ella kept them at bay. There would be a time to ask everything she could put words to, time to pester and wonder. Now, it was find or be caught.  _ Do or die. _

* * *

She saw a pit, dark and foreboding. The screams had stopped a minute back, bleeding into even more unsettling quiet. With the pit the only thing in sight Ella ran through the sea of gold, throat too cold and chest tight with it. She didn’t stop.

When she reached the lip, she took a second to catch her breath—or start—before searching for a way down. When she found the ladder, she realized she didn’t have to. Rhys’ soot streaked face climbed determinedly out of the darkness, followed by the rest of him. And something more. He set a small form on the floor, running a dirty hand through his hair. Which—now that she looked closer—was streaked with grey.

Ella sent a look that asked,  _ what happened?  _

He replied with,  _ I found what we came for.  _

The girl curled up on the ground couldn’t have been any more than four, tiny and thinner than glass. She seemed just as fragile, head buzzed (badly), and skin coated in grime. She smelled ten times worse than foul.  _ Sewage really,  _ Ella thought. Rhys scooped her up and wrapped her in his cloak, draping her around his neck. She didn’t seem to weigh any more than the chains binding her wrists and ankles.

Rhys caught her eye.  _ Let’s go. _

Ella nodded.

Before the pair—now a trio—could move, a rumbling came from deep within the caves. A humming, so quintessentially  _ not human  _ that Ella shivered, began. In a whispered, reptilian tongue that she hoped never to know, it began to sing. Its footsteps vibrated through the sea of gold and jewels, growing ever closer.

Rhys looked to Ella and Ella to Rhys. They were both tired, Rhys’ hair greying and Ella’s veins aching.  _ Hopefully you can pick up each other’s slack.  _ Ella set her jaw and straightened. She would find a way out, she had to. She had places to be, after all.

The gold came to her like it hadn’t left, burning through her hands and even inching up her wrists. She searched for a lock, a passage to go through. It seemed that she could only walk through doors already made, magic or not.  _ But there wasn’t a goddamn lock.  _ No lock, no door. She cursed and started running across the shining sea. Rhys followed, steps clinking behind hers.

The singing was covering more ground—the beast uttering the noise too close for comfort.

Ella’s eyes darted around, searching for the sheen of magic.

_ Come on come on comeoncomeoncomeon— _

There. Like a glitch in her vision, the lock caught. She started toward it, halfway there—

**“Hello, little ones,”** the voice spoke, stopping its chase. Ella wondered at how she could understand it.  **“Who allowed you free roam of my chambers?”** She turned, vision rising from onyx claws, to pearlescent scaled legs, chest, neck, and a regal face framed with ebony horns. The dragon’s amber eyes glittered like gems, narrowing as he took in the trespassers.  **“Why do you not speak? Your king asks a question of you, it is only polite to answer, before you perish.”** The dragon’s voice grated like colliding glass and fell like molten metal.

Rhys surprised her by speaking. 

**“Oh?”** Said the dragon, lowering his head to their level.  **“Such an ungrateful guest, stealing from me. Before we’ve even spoken, exchanged names.”**

“And what’re our names to you?” Ella chanced, feeling emboldened with freedom in sight. The dragon turned to her, and held her gaze. She fought not to drop it.

**“Long before man thrived, dragons ruled this world. Before a battle, the generals would exchange names and carry them in their pride so that the fallen would live on in will. Now, most of my kind has perished. I find human names substitute enough, when they are given in the thousands. And my advisors have been starving me of late.”**

Rhys stepped back, eyes too wide. Frosted breath plumed from his nose—too fast. Ella stared until he returned her gaze, and brought her hands together. She breathed. He breathed. The dragon’s sulfurous breath drowned out the cold, leaving itching warmth in its wake. The world hung in a precarious balance.

Ella had never been particularly good at keeping hers. 

She ran.

She didn’t look back, wouldn’t risk slowing. Power surged in her palms, gold glowing like the sun’s rays. The key started to form on her fingertip.

**“It is foolish to run, when you cannot possibly reach solace. I am Apollyon, born of flames and the bestower of destruction. I do not require your names, after all. Your lives are sufficient payment.”**

Rhys caught her hand—and darkness swept her from the ground. They landed against the wall, Rhys swaying and Ella gasping. Apollyon sucked in an oxygen stealing breath. Ella tore her eyes away and slid the key home, opening the door inward and falling through. Rhys tumbed after, voice rising into a shout as flames rushed toward them.

Ella shoved the door closed, silencing the roar of both dragon and fire.

Quiet hung delicately, and the door dissolved into thick night air.

Ella breathed.

Rhys breathed.

They both sank to their knees, eyes to the softly blazing stars.


End file.
